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Homegoing

Yaa Gyasi

Start date: November 1, 2021

Finish date: November 30, 2021

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What Members Thought

Jul 06, 2016 Brina rated it it was amazing

Shelves: african-american, african-lit

I give 5 shining stars to Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing, the best debut novel I have read this year. In this semi autobiographical tale, Gyasi follows the family histories of two half sisters, Effia the beauty and Esi to reveal how their families end up. Each chapter is a vignette focusing on a family member in subsequent generations, alternating between Effia and Esi's families until we reach present day. Here are their until now largely untold stories.

Effia the beauty had been raised by her step moth I give 5 shining stars to Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing, the best debut novel I have read this year. In this semi autobiographical tale, Gyasi follows the family histories of two half sisters, Effia the beauty and Esi to reveal how their families end up. Each chapter is a vignette focusing on a family member in subsequent generations, alternating between Effia and Esi's families until we reach present day. Here are their until now largely untold stories.

Effia the beauty had been raised by her step mother Baaba who did not love her as her own. Saved from a fire that plays a prominent role in her family's history for generations to come, Effia becomes the village's beauty long before she reaches marriageable age. Baaba, who always resented Effia's presence, sells her to the British in order to ensure the Asante's place in the slave trade, and Effia marries an English governor rather than a tribal chief. The only memory she takes with her is a black stone polished by fire.

One village over from Effia's, Esi Asare becomes a spoil of a tribal war. In a subsequent war, she is enslaved and taken to the same Cape Coastal Castle where Effia lives as the governor's wife. Before becoming captive, Esi receives a black stone from her mother Maame and finds out that she is not her mother's first born, rather that she had another daughter who she lost in a fire. Through the stone and oral histories, Esi learns that separated sisters are to be forever cursed in their family history. In spite of hearing this tale, Esi is determined to hang onto her stone, even when she is sold into slavery and bound in horrid conditions for America.

Gyasi interconnects the stories of Effia and Esi's descendants by alternating chapters. Each chapter tells the tale of the next member of each sister's family down to present time. Effia's family remains in Ghana whereas Esi's descendants move back and forth between the southern and northern United States. Playing a role in each chapter is the black stone and oral tradition as well as black pride and remembering where one came from through both the good times and the sacrifices made. In addition to the family, we read how their choices reflect the turmoil happening in both Ghana and the United States up through present times, which made the book even more powerful than it would have been if Gyasi only chose to tell a family narrative.

Because Gyasi only uses twenty pages to tell of each generation, the pages are powerful and packed full of detail and flowing language. Thus, each chapter read quickly as I desired to find out how the families ended up. I enjoyed the vignette format as though it were Gyasi telling us in person the African style oral history of where her ancestor Effia started and where she ended up. It would have been interesting to know a few details in the gaps between generations, but Gyasi fills these in easily enough in the next story. An extremely powerful read being billed as this generation's Roots, I immensely enjoyed Homegoing and look forward to Gyasi's future novels. ...more

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Jan 29, 2017 Candi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, african-american, goodreads-2016-award-nominees, africa

"He had always said that the joining of a man and a woman was also the joining of two families. Ancestors, whole histories, came with the act, but so did sins and curses. The children were the embodiment of that unity, and they bore the brunt of it all."

Homegoing is an astonishing and heartrending debut novel written by the undeniably talented Yaa Gyasi. Truly epic in scope, the book covers a span of about three-hundred years from the eighteenth century straight into the twentieth century. Alter "He had always said that the joining of a man and a woman was also the joining of two families. Ancestors, whole histories, came with the act, but so did sins and curses. The children were the embodiment of that unity, and they bore the brunt of it all."

Homegoing is an astonishing and heartrending debut novel written by the undeniably talented Yaa Gyasi. Truly epic in scope, the book covers a span of about three-hundred years from the eighteenth century straight into the twentieth century. Alternating between Ghana and America, Gyasi weaves a masterful account of the lives of two sisters, Effia and Esi, and their descendants. One sister wed to a British slave trader and the other doomed to the horrific fate of a slave bound for the American south, both will suffer from the legacy of slavery, injustice and greed as the consequences seep through the generations of each of their families.

The reader follows a large number of characters who, for the most part, are given a single chapter in which we learn of their life, their hardships, fears and desires. On rare occasions, we are able to feel their joy. The symbolism of fire, water and a special necklace follow them all. I learned a lot about the tribal warfare of western Africa and the colonization by the Europeans, all which led to the realization of something as horrific as the trading of human lives in exchange for power and money. Some accepted the legacy of their fathers and mothers and others sacrificed so much to escape the injustices imposed on themselves and others. I was familiar with the stories of the southern plantations, the lives of those that were “free” but oppressed by the Jim Crow laws, and the great migration to the north where many sought what they hoped would be a better future for their families and children. But each story I hear is unique, each individual has their own personal sufferings, and I cannot help but feel for every single one. Many are such heartbreaking stories. Women like Willie who would set her soul free and learn to sing again, and men like Yaw who bore indescribable physical and emotional suffering but could also be set free by the gift of forgiveness – such accounts brought a glimpse of light back into their lives and this book.

My only wish as I read this powerful story was that I could spend more time with each character. In some ways, this felt like a series of interconnected short stories. At first, I became a bit confused when the narrative jumped to a new character. A family tree at the beginning of the hard or electronic copy is definitely a plus. As the book progressed and I realized the intent, I easily settled in and went with the flow of Gyasi’s skillful writing. I just loved the way everything was tied together when I turned the last page. I will jump at whatever this author has in store for us next! I can only imagine the superb character development that would result from the penning of a novel with perhaps fewer characters. At the same time, I feel that the goal to present us with a saga illustrating the institution of slavery and its effect on multiple generations was accomplished with competence and dignity. I will not soon forget this stirring novel. Highly recommended with a rating of 4.5 stars!

"Evil begets evil. It grows. It transmutes, so that sometimes you cannot see that the evil in the world began as the evil in your own home." ...more

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Mar 18, 2018 Book Concierge rated it really liked it

Shelves: concierge, strong-women, library, africa, african-american, audio, book-club, debut, historical-fiction, racism

Digital audiobook performed by Dominic Hoffman

A sweeping historical fiction and debut novel that follows the descendants of two half-sisters over three hundred years. Effia and Esi are the half-sisters – born into different villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia is “married” to an Englishman (who has an English wife back in Britain), and lives in relative comfort in the “Cape Coast Castle.” Esi is sold into slavery and transported to the American colonies.

I am reminded of the phrase “There, but ...more

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Oct 05, 2016 Celia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 52-2017, 2017-read, kindle-list, reading-the-wrld, not-translate, book-club, well-read-world-lit, reading-the-world-read, vero-book-club

I am reading this book for many reasons:

Book Club 11/27 (I picked it)
One Word Title
Absolutely Fantastic

So much has been written about this book. Can I think of anything new to say? Probably not.

Just: A terrific family saga. Reads like short stories. But beautifully brought together in the end.

More comments will be added after Book Club tomorrow (11/27/17).

Best comment at Book Club: Celia, this was the best book I read this year. Aw. Makes a book chooser very happy and proud

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May 06, 2022 Kris (My Novelesque Life) rated it really liked it

Shelves: family-drama, historical-fiction, america, fiction, black-culture, history, africa

RATING: 4 STARS

Many, if not all my friends, who have read this book have rated it 5 star so I was super excited to read Homegoing. I just read her latest novel Transcendent Kingdom and heard it was not as good as her debut novel. Maybe I went in with too high expectations, and made it into something it never promised. I love Gyasi's writing and the way she writes characters ad gives them a unique voice. I listened to this one on audio, and that was one drawback, as they had just one narrator. I ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Aug 24, 2021 Tasha rated it really liked it

Shelves: africa, historical-fiction

Yaa Gyasi is certainly a very talented author, the writing was wonderful. My only wish, and it's not a fault of the author nor of the story, is that we had more time with each character she presented! I didn't realize until I was reading it that it reads more like interconnected short stories but the interconnections added such depth to each following story, it was beautifully executed. I loved that it traveled through many years and we got a glimpse of the following generations. Gyasi is such a ...more

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Nov 20, 2021 Kim rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, literary-fiction

Yaa Gyasi is a genius and I will read anything she writes. Truly, this is a masterpiece and the fact it is a debut is shocking. I first read Transcendent Kingdom earlier this year and perhaps connected more directly with it (toxic religion and neuroscience in particular), but both books are brilliant in my opinion. Homegoing is a series of snapshots of each generation over 300 years, one branch of the family tree in Ghana and one in America. It is a very difficult book to read, as anything would ...more

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Dec 04, 2021 Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Jenn Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Schu rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction

This was an amazing work of historical fiction. I listened on audio and greatly appreciated the pdf of the family tree to follow along with the stories of each family member. The story begins in the 18th century at the time of the slave trade and British colonization in Africa. The family tree follows the stories of Effia and Esi and their descendants. A heartbreaking story full of emotion and beautifully literary prose. I highly recommend this story and look forward to more by Gyasi.

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Jul 26, 2017 Lory Sakay rated it it was amazing

What an innovative way to share history, through several generations' stories, trials, and tribulations. Although, I would have preferred Gyasi adding years to her chapter titles as I struggled to connect who to whom and timelines in the book - sometimes it jumped further than other times so one had to rely on their memory of names mentioned earlier in the book, I quickly became engrossed in the many facets of the interconnecting lives; in America and Africa. Homegoing takes the reader through 2 ...more

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Apr 17, 2019 Joanne rated it really liked it

Shelves: pbt36-2019-read

From the very start this book had me reeled in. Gyasi tells a tale that spans generations, starting with sisters born on the Gold Cost of Africa, now known as Ghana. The sister's,though having the same mother, never know each other. Effi grows up to be married off to one of the British Slave Traders and Esi becomes a slave and ends up in the American South.

The book is broken down into sections, where the story is told, alternating families, by the next generation. For a book that is barely 300 h ...more

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